And To Another Human Being
by M. D. Jensen
Summary: Vincent has a drinking problem. Arastoo knows this, but also sort of doesn't. Set earlier in the sixth season.


Disclaimer: not mine. Twelve steps were googled; I also used to do secretarial work in a substance abuse clinic, so I know my way around them pretty well. The title comes from the fifth step, "we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

After received pretty good reviews for _Breakfast with Angela_, which posited a friendship between Vincent and Arastoo, I wanted to explore the subject a bit more. I also didn't appreciate how lightly they treated Vincent's alcoholism on the show, and thus this fic was born.

_And To Another Human Being_

It's a Tuesday night, and Arastoo has only been back in the States a few weeks, when Vincent mentions it for the first time. "I suppose I drank a bit much on my travels," he admits first, then in the next breath, "I suppose I haven't stopped." Arastoo doesn't pay much attention. Vincent has a flair for the dramatic, and knows full well that Arastoo considers any amount of drinking inappropriate.

He doesn't find out about the rehab until months later, doesn't find out until it's already clearly failed.

Things settle back easily into the previous routine after Dr. Brennan returns. With Arastoo back from Iraq and cultural anthropology, and Vincent back from television and seeing the world, they both have stories to tell. Drunken revelry takes up a lot of time in Vincent's, but Arastoo just sighs and steers the conversation in another direction. Arastoo rejoins his baseball team and Vincent goes for pizza with them afterwards now and then. They continue their pursuit of the prettiest Jeffersonian girls.

They've both been back a few months when they attend a weekend showing of _Star Wars_. Arastoo had vetoed the idea of going in costume, but Vincent shows up in a bathrobe with a plastic lightsaber hooked on the sash. This by itself is only a slight annoyance, until Arastoo catches the scent of alcohol, nearly hidden under cologne. "Are you drunk?" he asks, trying not to sound accusatory, but he can't help but get angry when Vincent says he's not. "Well, have you been drinking?" he snaps.

"Well, yes," Vincent replies, then turns back to the screen. "How long until the bikini?" Then he spills his popcorn clumsily across both their laps.

There is a quicksand feeling in Arastoo's chest, but he ignores it, replaces it with pure irritation.

A few weeks later, he's just drifting off after a long day at the lab. The call wakes him around 1am. Arastoo plugs the address that Vincent gives him into his GPS and is brought to an empty lot. He drives the area looking for neon signs- Vincent managed to give the name of the bar, at least- and finally finds it half a mile away.

Still a bit bleary, Arastoo pads inside wearing running sneakers, sweatpants, and a threadbare t-shirt; he realizes that he hasn't even thought to finger-comb his hair. Surrounded by the pulsing beat of remixed top-forty, assaulted by the smell of dozens of different drinks, Arastoo has never felt less welcome in the country that, by all rights, is his home much more than it is Vincent's. He feels terribly old, terribly out of touch, and yet utterly childlike in his pajamas.

Vincent is slouched alone in a booth, head propped on his hands like it's a struggle to keep it up. No one is paying him any mind- not his fellow patrons, not the bartender, not the waitresses; he could be dead and no one would know until closing time. Arastoo has never been anyone's emergency ride home before; he doesn't know what to say as he rouses Vincent from his stupor with a shake of the shoulder. But Vincent doesn't know what to say either, so apparently they'll just get through this together.

He doesn't speak on the ride, either, until they're more than halfway back to Arastoo's apartment. "'rastoo," Vincent slurs, dropping the leading phoneme. "'rastoo." Drunk, he calls him by the same name that his baby cousin used to, all those years ago, still learning to speak. Vincent is sort of gagging, sort of sobbing, somehow still looking completely embarrassed. Some vaguely sentient part of his mind must know how much he is repulsing Arastoo, with his Islamic aversion to alcohol, with his personal aversion to uncleanliness. "Pull over," Vincent moans, and then wrenches the door open as soon as he can and vomits onto the shoulder of the road.

Arastoo refrains from judgment; refrains even from any harsh looks as he gets Vincent back to his place, arranges him on the couch, and brings him a blanket and a trashcan. He spends the night in the armchair, listening to the sounds of retching, making sure that Vincent stays lying on his side, and never once so much as frowns. There is a certain sick pleasure, though, in the pitiful moans that Vincent produces as Arastoo's cell alarm goes off promptly at 6am and the lights in the apartment switch on. Then Arastoo can't help it; the words just fall out of his mouth.

"You _are_ drinking too much, Vincent."

"I know."

But still it doesn't feel like a problem so much as a bad habit.

This whole process- the midnight call, the sleepily confused driving, the escort back home- happens two more times. Then it doesn't happen again. Arastoo just counts himself glad and doesn't ask questions. Vincent is one of his closest friends, and he is one of Vincent's, but somehow their relationship isn't based on very many deep conversations. That's why it's so surprising when they are walking to their cars together one day- way out in the boondocks of the Jeffersonian lot- and Vincent says, "I'm in the twelve step."

Arastoo's feet stop walking.

Vincent snorts impatiently. "Don't look so frightened. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous have included Buzz Aldrin, Anthony Hopkins, and Rick Allen. I'm in good company."

But Arastoo _is_ frightened; he's petrified, at the exact same time that he's in denial. Because as terrifying as that word is- _alcoholic_- it also doesn't make sense. It sounds like something out of a gritty action movie, or crime drama tv show, and Vincent is sort of small and dorky and unsuspecting, and how can he be one of _those_? And Arastoo- certainly he's not a friend of an alcoholic, because his life hasn't been altered like that. "Friend of alcoholic" conjures for him these images of running off in the middle of the night, dragging loved ones home from who-knows-where, humiliation as their friends make fools of themselves in public, sleepless hours spent making sure that they don't choke on their own vomit and ridiculously dramatic things like that which have never happened to him... at least not all the time...

Lying in bed that night, Arastoo is under three blankets because he can't get warm. He's finding pictures in the shadows on his ceiling because he can't bring himself to close his eyes. His alarm goes off before he gets a single minute of sleep, and he arrives at work the next day looking like he's the one with the problem.

Over the next few days, he googles a copy of the twelve steps, gets to know them as well as his prayers or the primate taxonomic tree. He recites them to himself as he goes about his labwork, his housework, his errands. He probably knows them as well as Vincent does.

So, for all the surprises he's been getting lately, he is not surprised when Vincent asks to talk after one of their pizza parties.

"Arastoo," he says tonelessly; after two years of friendship, the name still sounds a bit funny in his accent, like he wants to emphasize the wrong syllable: _Arr-_astoo. They are sitting on Arastoo's couch, and Arastoo is still in his uniform, smelling like grass and sweat. "Part of the twelve step is apologizing to the people we've hurt while we were drinking," Vincent tells him quietly.

Arastoo knows this:

_Step eight: we made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. _

_Step nine: we made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others._

"All right," Arastoo says.

"All right." Vincent inhales deeply and slowly, wringing his hands. "I'm sorry. I am sorry, Arastoo. And this is what I'm sorry for. I'm sorry for the times we've gone out and I've been too drunk to be good company. I am sorry for the times you had to come and pick me up in the middle of the night. I'm sorry I threw up in your car." The sentences are coming out like a laundry list, but Vincent is shaking, and Arastoo can't do much but sit silently and be stunned. "I'm sorry I made you cover for me when I missed limbo duty," Vincent continues. "And I'm sorry that I may have implied that you're single because all the ladies in the Jeffersonian, Muslim girls included, are only interested in me. I'm sorry for all the times I know I've been oblivious and stupid and irritating and I haven't been nearly as good a friend to you as you have been to me. And... Arastoo..." he can't get the words out. Arastoo feels his heart pounding. What can't Vincent bring himself to say, after all of that?

"One time a few months ago I was in this bar in Baltimore, and it was this terrible place, and I got to doing shots with these... these terrible, really bigoted rednecks. And they were saying things. They were saying these horrible things about... about Muslims, and Islam, and Mohammad. Really... horrible. And they were all just drunk and shouting and cursing all Islam. And they called me a Limey and I said no, I love America, and they said if you love America, then you tell me what you think of Muslims." Vincent's eyes are saucer-round, and Arastoo feels as though his insides have shut down. He doesn't feel anything. He's just listening.

"And I should have said, one of my best friends is Muslim, shut up, leave it be. But I didn't. I went along with them. I was drinking and cursing and being horrible just as much as they were and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Arastoo. Please." There are tears welled up in the corners of Vincent's eyes.

Feeling returns to Arastoo in a rush, with the sensation of a knife being stabbed into his gut. The anger is not for Vincent, but for himself, because until this very moment he didn't really get it, didn't really get how serious this was, and how much it sucked- or maybe, even worse, he had known and had done nothing. Either way he has stabbed himself in the stomach and now it is all he can do not to clutch sickly at his own belly and stagger away.

_I would never have known if you hadn't told me_, he wants to say. Instead he shakes his head calmly. "Vincent, don't worry about it."

"I am worrying about it. Clearly," Vincent adds, and then he's crying, sobbing with his face covered by one hand.

Arastoo feels a thrill of genuine panic for the first time in years, for the first time since the army drained that out of him. He slides down the couch to sit closer; lifts a hand and puts it back down twice before actually laying it on the back of Vincent's neck. The skin there feels flushed. He squeezes gently at the back of his neck, and has an unbidden flashback to being taught how to pick up a kitten. There is so much raw emotion in the room- guilt, grief, fear- that he wants to cry as well, but instead he runs his hand up and down Vincent's spine until Vincent is calm enough to raise his head.

"Thank you for apologizing," Arastoo says quietly, almost ritually, when he feels that Vincent is ready to hear it. "I understand, and I forgive you. And I appreciate how hard that was for you. And I'm... _I'm_ sorry that I didn't do enough to help you while you were going through that."

Vincent frowns, wiping his bleary eyes. "What are you talking about, Arastoo?" His voice is clogged, childish. "You were fantastic. That first time I called you, in the bar- remember?" Arastoo nods. "I called a few people before you," Vincent admits. "None of them came."

There is something infinitely, timelessly sad in that statement. Arastoo moves to hug Vincent at the same time Vincent moves to hug him, and even though he isn't really one for physical contact, Arastoo doesn't mind as the embrace lasts five seconds, ten, twenty. It's like a plug has been pulled at the bottom of his feet and everything is just draining out of him, running safely into the earth, and all he's got left are his arms around Vincent's skinny neck and Vincent's hands pressed up against his shoulder blades; his temple brushing up against Vincent's mop of hair and Vincent's head lying heavily on his shoulder. "Will you be okay?" he murmurs, afraid of the answer but more afraid not to ask.

"Yes," Vincent promises, nodding against Arastoo's neck. "I'll be fine."


End file.
